


Roses are Red -- a Tragedy in Five Acts

by Cluegirl



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: AU, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-18
Updated: 2010-08-18
Packaged: 2017-10-11 03:47:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/108011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cluegirl/pseuds/Cluegirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snape attempts to help Rodolphus Lestrange find the perfect Valentines Gift for his lovely wife...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Act 1

She crouched over the half-clothed man like a cat, her lower body undulating over his hips even as his torn throat bathed her face and body in scarlet. She grunted rhythmically as she slurped the wet, ratted gobbet of meat into her mouth and began to chew. Snape, frozen on the threshold, doorknob like ice in his hand, could see the ridges of Rudolphus Lestrange's esophagus as the arterial spray slowed to a trickle. _There can't be enough blood left in the man's body to maintain any sort of an erection now,_ he thought in stunned horror, watching the woman continue to grind. And grunt. And chew.

He swallowed against his rising gorge -- a gulp too loud, for her head snapped up at once. Her hair was matted and writhing with green. Tiny scarlet blossoms opened and closed like hungry mouths amoung the tresses, showing thorny white hearts like teeth within. Vines wrapped her arms, her throat, her belly, long barbs pulsing violet in time with her heart.

Or possibly her madness.

Her eyes transfixed him -- leaf-green from lid to lid, without trace of white or pupil to mar that blank, verdant gaze. Snape realized he was staring, sweating in his tight black robes, shaking with the urge to run -- but he couldn't make himself look away. A part of his brain, calm and precise, decided that birds must feel that way under a cobra's gaze. Then she broke the spell with a sudden lunge across the room, her gory mouth spread wide in a silent scream.

Snape slammed the door shut between them in the nick of time.

The thick oak planks shuddered as she hit the other side with her full weight. He pressed it closed with shoulder and spell as she mewed and clawed and breathed nonsense filth within. Her babble meant nothing, profanity blurred in with random words and animal noises, but the meaning was clear; Hunger. Madness. Rage.

A dry whisper against his boot, and Snape jumped, wand at the ready. But it was only a square of cream cardstock. Bending, he plucked the card up with a shaky hand and turned it over to read.


	2. Act 2

Snape was just coming out of Knockturn Alley when he met Rudolphus Lestrange with a white china pot in his hands and a broad grin on his face.

"Severus," he shouted, trotting up like an eager puppy, "It's done at last! And just in time as well -- look!" And he thrust the small bush under Snape's nose.

"A rose," Snape curled his lip, "how she'll appreciate your originality."

"Yes, a rose, you sour old gargoyle! Look though -- it's _her_ rose," Lestrange fingered one of the tight-furled blooms, "This red isn't just any red; he assured me it's the exact colour of _her_ blood. Unique. Like her."

"It smells."

"Well, it's a rose, isn't it?" Lestrange shrugged, putting his nose into the prickly bush and breathing deeply, "It's meant to smell. Ouch!"

Snape rolled his eyes. "Is it meant to lacerate the nose of the lady who breathes of it as well, you buffoon?"

"That's the beauty of it," Lestrange replied, grinning as his pupils dilated slowly, "s'been bred with a dreamwort vine. Thorns're the best bit. She'll love it. Give it a try!"

Grinding his teeth, Snape leaned away as once again the bush was thrust at him. "Thank you, no. Spotting a flicker of white amoungst the glossy leaves and arching thorns, he identified a card, and plucked it out to read while the stoned idiot who'd paid for the damned plant pricked his thumb deeply again.

_The Lady Lestrange,"_ the card drawled in an elegantly professional hand, _"Registered hybrid, February of 2005, College of Magical Herbology."_ He turned it over, and rolled his eyes at the inscription. _"For my beautiful wife, a token of my undying love. Rudolphus Lestrange."_

"You are without doubt the most maudlin fool I have ever encountered," Snape said, dropping the card back into the greenery, "and you make me glad beyond the telling of it that I have neither reason nor obligation to arse about with such nonsense. Buying a woman's love with a flower, indeed! How much money did you waste on this damned thing anyhow?"

But Rudolphus Lestrange was now firmly in the grip of the moment… or perhaps the plant's intoxicant properties, and so he only gave his old classmate a lopsided smile and patted Snape's arm. "Sorry you don' have yourself a valentine, Snape old man. I'll be sure to let you know how brilliant the sex was after Bella get's my li'l gift then, shall I?"

"Please do NOT," Snape called after him, but the man only wandered to the corner and then apparated away, leaving Snape's irritated nose to try and tease out the subtle elements of the damn plant's odor, and work out just why it seemed so teasingly familiar.


	3. Act 3

Snape made certain to be available after the meeting was over, lingering about the Manor's apparation foyer as the other Death Eaters made their exits. He watched the dark haired woman wind herself about her unearthly paramour while her husband seethed impotently behind them. And when Bellatrix and her Dark Lord retreated up stairs with the Lord and Lady of the Manor, Rudolphus watched for a seething moment, and then turned on his heel and stormed from the room.

"Watch where you're going, buffoon!" Snape barked, stepping squarely into Lestrange's path. As expected the man staggered, eyes wet and blazingly angry. But unexpectedly, when Snape caught his shoulders to steady him, Lestrange sagged, sobbing against him. Unexpected, but quite an opportunity nonetheless. Snape wasted no time ensconcing the two of them alone in the little smoking parlour just off the library.

"You must help me, Severus," Lestrange hiccoughed into his snifter, "I'm losing her, and there's nothing I can do!"

Snape, who privately agreed with the man, leaned back in the armchair, steepled his fingers, and snorted. "Nonsense, man. You know she's only doing it to advance your interests with the Dark Lord."

"So she says," Lestrange moaned, "but you haven't seen her eyes when she looks. You haven't felt her lips when she kisses me, so cold…"

_Thank Merlin I haven't,_ Snape managed not to roll his eyes, but it wasn't easy. _Still… perhaps this can be turned to advantage… poison?_ "Then what on earth do you think I can do?" he snapped, "Surely you're not fool enough to think an aphrodisiac-"

"Don't be a fool! She'd kill us both afterward, and you know it!" He sighed, drank again. "Valentines day is coming up…" Lestrange had the wit, at least, to look abashed as he said the ridiculous words. "I don't know what to get her."

"Valentines then," Snape mused, tapping his lips with one long finger, "Jewelry is a favorite amoung the besotted, I hear." _And can be charmed to conceal all manner of clever, deadly curses as well._ he added silently.

"She has jewelry. She has jewelry from _him_. I want to give her something different."

"Candy is traditional," Snape offered, wondering if it could possibly be that easy.  
Lestrange's curling lip put that hope to rest. "She'd never eat candy. She'd think it was poisoned."

"Even from you?"

"_Especially_ from me."

"Cologne then," Snape went on, already cataloguing the poisons that could be hidden under a floral scent, "I could brew you something that would bewitch her to you like a siren's song."

"And she'd kill me AND you for it afterward, when her senses returned," Lestrange waved the idea away bitterly, but Snape wasn't so ready to let it go.

"I could be far more subtle than that, you idiot," he said, getting to his feet to pace the length of the small room, "Let me brew you something with feet like a cat of fog, something that will drift soft as a serpent's whisper through her mind until she must cleave herself to you or go mad of it."

"I don't need your bloody perfume, Severus," Lestrange growled, "I need your craft -- your wits to help me. She says I bore her -- I, who gave her everything she ever asked for. I, who got her away from that cess-pit of a family, who gave her a name without blood-traitors, who gave her fortune, and security, and…"

"And couldn't get her, or yourself, out of Azkaban," Snape reminded him, thinking that if no tainted gift could be proffered, perhaps this jealousy might be sharpened into a suitable weapon. One good solid bout of 'if I cannot have you then no man shall' would solve a great many of the Order's problems, after all. "Small wonder she should feel grateful to Our Lord for that, really."

"THIS IS NOT GRATITUDE!" Lestrange exploded to his feet, and only just stopped himself flinging one of Lucius' better snifters.

"Ambition then," Snape shrugged, "Either will have the same result."

"SHE LOVES ME, DAMN YOU!" It was hard not to smile, as he was hauled from the chair by the front of his robes, but Snape managed it, dropping his wand into his hand with a practiced shake as the wild-eyed man snarled up into his face, "she loves me, you cold-hearted bastard! ME! Not him! You help me make her remember, damn it, or-"

"Cousin Lestrange?" A soft voice, light with alarm spoke from the doorway. Both men pushed back, turned to regard the slender, elegant figure of Draco Malfoy.

_Damn it, damn it, DAMN IT!_ Snape seethed at the intrusion, stalking back to his chair and abandoned cognac, _What the devil is he doing at home tonight? And more to the point, how can I get his pointed little nose OUT of this now?_

"Draco," Lestrange made his voice a parody of parochial cheer, blotchy face spreading in a rictus that distantly approached a welcoming grin. "You mustn't mind us. Severus and I were only-"

"It's all right, you know," Draco shook his fringe from his eyes and slouched into the room, heading for Lucius' drinks cabinet with and unthinking directness, "I don't think anyone heard the shouting but me. And I, for one, can understand it. I don't think it's fair, or fitting, what's happening, but I think I might be able to help, if you don't mind."

_Damn it!_ Snape put his snifter aside. "With all _due_ respect, young Mr. Malfoy, I find it doubtful that a sixteen year old boy's experience with romance will bear much relevance to the situation."

"Oh, as if you've much better, you celibate old gargoyle!" Lestrange snarled, "Let the boy speak -- if he's got half a Black brain inside that head of his, there should be something usable out of it."

"I'm flattered," Draco said in a voice that was nothing of the sort. "

"You're also out of bounds on a school night," Snape growled, already knowing how little such an implicit threat would matter in the brat's own home.

Sure enough, Draco only smirked before taking his glass -- whiskey, not cognac, Snape noted -- to the window and drawing the curtain aside. "Come and look here," the youth called, and Lestrange went, grumbling.

"I've seen the bloody gardens before, boy-"

"Hush. Look just there. See that climbing rose?"

From his chair, Snape had the vantage of spotting the plant, in charmed bloom against the lingering February snows, moonlit so that the pale blossoms glowed like moonstones. "Flowers!" Snape scoffed, "Puerile, even for a schoolboy!"

"That rose is called the Lady Malfoy," Draco went on smoothly, though his high, smooth cheekbones coloured a bit, "My father had it bred for my mother when I was born. This is the very first specimen ever bred, and the only one in Wiltshire. My mother loves it, and never tires of telling me how much her sister-" here he slid his grey eyes at the man behind him, "seemed to envy the gift…"

"Hmph. The woman always was well named," Snape began, grasping after the trailing end of the opportunity," Well she _would_ say-" But then he caught sight of Lestrange's eyes -- narrowed, darting, glittering with manic attention. _Damn!_

"I believe," Draco seized his triumph smoothly, "my father still does business with the Herbologist who designed it. The father is retired, but I believe his son is still in the business. Perhaps I could contact him on your behalf?"


	4. Act 4

"Don't go," the man's voice was low, intense and barely audible over the pair's footsteps, "afterward. Don't. Come home with me." Snape glided silently into a sculpture's nook and went still to watch the couple pass with angry strides.

"I'll _do,_" Snape heard a sharp rustle as Bellatrix yanked her arm out of her husband's grip, "as our Lord commands me to, just as you will. I'll promise nothing else to you, _husband_."

Which was not only shrewd, but rather wise as well, Snape mused. Bellatrix had been on the short end of Voldemort's temper ever since her error in judgment at the Department of Mysteries the summer before. He made use of that unrelieved anger to her expense at the slightest excuse she offered him these days.

However let it never be said that a woman of the Black house could not turn misfortune into advantage however. Bellatrix had somehow managed to intrigue her Master with her submission to his ire, yielding with him as she would do to no other soul alive, drawing the most brilliant, amoral mind in the Wizarding world into a scarlet lure of power and surrender. Severus might almost have applauded her, if he didn't know fully well what a dangerous thing such feminine guile would be if it gained any influence at all here.

"Please, Bella," Lestrange's husky voice wheedled as they turned the corner, "Just avoid his eye. Just stay quiet, we'll keep by the door. We'll leave together as soon as we're released!"

Snape indulged himself in a smile at the poor helpless cuckold, and the utter, amoral cat to whom he'd given his heart to claw. Bellatrix didn't love Voldemort any more than she loved Rudolphus, and every Death Eater but one knew it. The whole matter -- for her, at least -- was all about the power.

_She'd as readily throw herself at MY feet if I bid fair to rule the world!_ Snape thought, easing out of his hiding place, _A concubine with the claws of a queen, she is, a climbing rose with very sharp thorns. How fortunate for me that her perfume holds no attraction!_


	5. Act 5

He heard her purring filth, clawing at the door, breathless and desperate. Wet, soft sounds might have been made by her fingers plunging into herself, or in the body of her husband. Through the stench of blood and death soared the plant's perfume -- strong enough to make him dizzy, pure enough now to make the deadly vine's pedigree plain. Dreamwort and rose were the least of its ancestry -- devil's snare, scarletto and ghost-thorn curled through Severus' trained nose. Deadly enough just there, but the subtle tapestry of toxins continued to develop in horrific complexity until he was certain of only one thing -- whatever of Bellatrix's Lestrange nee Black's sanity had survived the plant's initial attack, the odour would by now have destroyed irreparably.

As if in agreement, Bellatrix wandered away from the door, grunting and mewing as she returned to her conquered prey.

Chilled to the bone, Severus turned the card over in his fingers, watched unsurprised as the inscription wavered, knotted, and then unrolled into a much more youthful, angry hand. A script that had come to meet the red end of his quill very often indeed, this past seven years.

He read the words and caught a surprised laugh between his teeth. _Well well,_ he thought, smoothing his rumpled robes as he dropped the card into a marble urn and set it afire, _I suppose I need to make an appointment with young with young Mr. Malfoy at the soonest opportunity, to discuss his opinion of current politics. And possibly his choice of companionship as well..._

The evidence burned, crooked words swallowed up by the smoking black ash while Severus stood guard -- "To the murderess of my parents," he saluted the purity of the revenge aloud, slipping the porcelain mask over his appreciative smile, "Who's laughing now? Enjoy your time in Hell. Sincerely, Neville Longbottom."

And turning on his heel, Severus left the ashes smouldering and went to notify his Lord of the loss.

_Fin_


End file.
